Deuteronomy 32

1 Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak; hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.

Give ear, O heavens, to my voice; let the earth take note of the words of my mouth:

2 Let my teaching fall like rain and my speech settle like dew, like gentle rain on new grass, like showers on tender plants.

My teaching is dropping like rain, coming down like dew on the fields; like rain on the young grass and showers on the garden plants:

3 For I will proclaim the name of the LORD. Ascribe greatness to our God!

For I will give honour to the name of the Lord: let our God be named great.

4 He is the Rock, His work is perfect; all His ways are just. A God of faithfulness without injustice, righteous and upright is He.

He is the Rock, complete is his work; for all his ways are righteousness: a God without evil who keeps faith, true and upright is he.

5 His people have acted corruptly toward Him; the spot on them is not that of His children, but of a perverse and crooked generation.

They have become false, they are not his children, the mark of sin is on them; they are an evil and hard-hearted generation.

6 Is this how you repay the LORD, O foolish and senseless people? Is He not your Father and Creator? Has He not made you and established you?

Is this your answer to the Lord, O foolish people and unwise? Is he not your father who has given you life? He has made you and given you your place.

7 Remember the days of old; consider the years long past. Ask your father, and he will tell you, your elders, and they will inform you.

Keep in mind the days of the past, give thought to the years of generations gone by: go to your father and he will make it clear to you, to the old men and they will give you the story.

8 When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when He divided the sons of man, He set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God.

When the Most High gave the nations their heritage, separating into groups the children of men, he had the limits of the peoples marked out, keeping in mind the number of the children of Israel.

9 But the LORD’s portion is His people, Jacob His allotted inheritance.

For the Lord's wealth is his people; Jacob is the land of his heritage.

10 He found him in a desert land, in a barren, howling wilderness; He surrounded him, He instructed him, He guarded him as the apple of His eye.

He came to him in the waste land, in the unpeopled waste of sand: putting his arms round him and caring for him, he kept him as the light of his eye.

11 As an eagle stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, He spread His wings to catch them and carried them on His pinions.

As an eagle, teaching her young to make their flight, with her wings outstretched over them, takes them up on her strong feathers:

12 The LORD alone led him, and no foreign god was with him.

So the Lord only was his guide, no other god was with him.

13 He made him ride on the heights of the land and fed him the produce of the field. He nourished him with honey from the rock and oil from the flinty crag,

He put him on the high places of the earth, his food was the increase of the field; honey he gave him out of the rock and oil out of the hard rock;

14 with curds from the herd and milk from the flock, with the fat of lambs, with rams from Bashan, and goats, with the choicest grains of wheat. From the juice of the finest grapes you drank the wine.

Butter from his cows and milk from his sheep, with fat of lambs and sheep of Bashan, and goats, and the heart of the grain; and for your drink, wine from the blood of the grape.

15 But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked— becoming fat, bloated, and gorged. He abandoned the God who made him and scorned the Rock of his salvation.

But Jeshurun became fat and would not be controlled: you have become fat, you are thick and full of food: then he was untrue to the God who made him, giving no honour to the Rock of his salvation.

16 They provoked His jealousy with foreign gods; they enraged Him with abominations.

The honour which was his they gave to strange gods; by their disgusting ways he was moved to wrath.

17 They sacrificed to demons, not to God, to gods they had not known, to newly arrived gods, which your fathers did not fear.

They made offerings to evil spirits which were not God, to gods who were strange to them, which had newly come up, not feared by your fathers.

18 You ignored the Rock who brought you forth; you forgot the God who gave you birth.

You have no thought for the Rock, your father, you have no memory of the God who gave you birth.

19 When the LORD saw this, He rejected them, provoked to anger by His sons and daughters.

And the Lord saw with disgust the evil-doing of his sons and daughters.

20 He said: “I will hide My face from them; I will see what will be their end. For they are a perverse generation— children of unfaithfulness.

And he said, My face will be veiled from them, I will see what their end will be: for they are an uncontrolled generation, children in whom is no faith.

21 They have provoked My jealousy by that which is not God; they have enraged Me with their worthless idols. So I will make them jealous by those who are not a people; I will make them angry by a nation without understanding.

They have given my honour to that which is not God, moving me to wrath with their false worship: I will give their honour to those who are not a people, moving them to wrath by a foolish nation,

22 For a fire has been kindled by My anger, and it burns to the depths of Sheol; it consumes the earth and its produce, and scorches the foundations of the mountains. (Sheol h7585)

For my wrath is a flaming fire, burning to the deep parts of the underworld, burning up the earth with her increase, and firing the deep roots of the mountains. (Sheol h7585)

23 I will heap disasters upon them; I will spend My arrows against them.

I will send a rain of troubles on them, my arrows will be showered on them.

24 They will be wasted from hunger and ravaged by pestilence and bitter plague; I will send the fangs of wild beasts against them, with the venom of vipers that slither in the dust.

They will be wasted from need of food, and overcome by burning heat and bitter destruction; and the teeth of beasts I will send on them, with the poison of the worms of the dust.

25 Outside, the sword will take their children, and inside, terror will strike the young man and the young woman, the infant and the gray-haired man.

Outside they will be cut off by the sword, and in the inner rooms by fear; death will take the young man and the virgin, the baby at the breast and the grey-haired man.

26 I would have said that I would cut them to pieces and blot out their memory from mankind,

I said I would send them wandering far away, I would make all memory of them go from the minds of men:

27 if I had not dreaded the taunt of the enemy, lest their adversaries misunderstand and say: ‘Our own hand has prevailed; it was not the LORD who did all this.’”

But for the fear that their haters, uplifted in their pride, might say, Our hand is strong, the Lord has not done all this.

28 Israel is a nation devoid of counsel, with no understanding among them.

For they are a nation without wisdom; there is no sense in them.

29 If only they were wise, they would understand it; they would comprehend their fate.

If only they were wise, if only this was clear to them, and they would give thought to their future!

30 How could one man pursue a thousand, or two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, unless the LORD had given them up?

How would it be possible for one to overcome a thousand, and two to send ten thousand in flight, if their rock had not let them go, if the Lord had not given them up?

31 For their rock is not like our Rock, even our enemies concede.

For their rock is not like our Rock, even our haters themselves being judges.

32 But their vine is from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are poisonous; their clusters are bitter.

For their vine is the vine of Sodom, from the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are the grapes of evil, and the berries are bitter:

33 Their wine is the venom of serpents, the deadly poison of cobras.

Their wine is the poison of dragons, the cruel poison of snakes.

34 “Have I not stored up these things, sealed up within My vaults?

Is not this among my secrets, kept safe in my store-house?

35 Vengeance is Mine; I will repay. In due time their foot will slip; for their day of disaster is near, and their doom is coming quickly.”

Punishment is mine and reward, at the time of the slipping of their feet: for the day of their downfall is near, sudden will be their fate.

36 For the LORD will vindicate His people and have compassion on His servants when He sees that their strength is gone and no one remains, slave or free.

For the Lord will be judge of his people, he will have pity for his servants; when he sees that their power is gone, there is no one, shut up or free.

37 He will say: “Where are their gods, the rock in which they took refuge,

And he will say, Where are their gods, the rock in which they put their faith?

38 which ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink offerings? Let them rise up and help you; let them give you shelter!

Who took the fat of their offerings, and the wine of their drink offering? Let them now come to your help, let them be your salvation.

39 See now that I am He; there is no God besides Me. I bring death and I give life; I wound and I heal, and there is no one who can deliver from My hand.

See now, I myself am he; there is no other god but me: giver of death and life, wounding and making well: and no one has power to make you free from my hand.

40 For I lift up My hand to heaven and declare: As surely as I live forever,

For lifting up my hand to heaven I say, By my unending life,

41 when I sharpen My flashing sword, and My hand grasps it in judgment, I will take vengeance on My adversaries and repay those who hate Me.

If I make sharp my shining sword, and my hand is outstretched for judging, I will give punishment to those who are against me, and their right reward to my haters.

42 I will make My arrows drunk with blood, while My sword devours flesh— the blood of the slain and captives, the heads of the enemy leaders.”

I will make my arrows red with blood, my sword will be feasting on flesh, with the blood of the dead and the prisoners, of the long-haired heads of my haters.

43 Rejoice, O heavens, with Him, and let all God’s angels worship Him. Rejoice, O nations, with His people; for He will avenge the blood of His children. He will take vengeance on His adversaries and repay those who hate Him; He will cleanse His land and His people.

Be glad, O you his people, over the nations; for he will take payment for the blood of his servants, and will give punishment to his haters, and take away the sin of his land, for his people.

44 Then Moses came with Joshua son of Nun and recited all the words of this song in the hearing of the people.

So Moses said all the words of this song in the hearing of the people, he and Hoshea, the son of Nun.

45 When Moses had finished reciting all these words to all Israel,

And after saying all this to the people,

46 he said to them, “Take to heart all these words I testify among you today, so that you may command your children to carefully follow all the words of this law.

Moses said to them, Let the words which I have said to you today go deep into your hearts, and give orders to your children to do every word of this law.

47 For they are not idle words to you, because they are your life, and by them you will live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess.”

And this is no small thing for you, but it is your life, and through this you may make your days long in the land which you are going over Jordan to take for your heritage.

48 On that same day the LORD said to Moses,

That same day the Lord said to Moses,

49 “Go up into the Abarim Range to Mount Nebo, in the land of Moab across from Jericho, and view the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites as their own possession.

Go up into this mountain of Abarim, to Mount Nebo in the land of Moab opposite Jericho; there you may see the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel for their heritage:

50 And there on the mountain that you climb, you will die and be gathered to your people, just as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people.

And let death come to you on the mountain where you are going, and be put to rest with your people; as death came to Aaron, your brother, on Mount Hor, where he was put to rest with his people:

51 For at the waters of Meribah-kadesh in the Wilderness of Zin, both of you broke faith with Me among the Israelites by failing to treat Me as holy in their presence.

Because of your sin against me before the children of Israel at the waters of Meribath Kadesh in the waste land of Zin; because you did not keep my name holy among the children of Israel.

52 Although you shall see from a distance the land that I am giving the Israelites, you shall not enter it.”

So you will see the land before you, but you will not go into the land which I am giving to the children of Israel.